Posts Tagged ‘Erik Hamren’

France surrendered their 22 match unbeaten record with a slow, disjointed performance in Kiev that will have Laurent Blanc concerned about his sides chances of going past the quarter-final stage of this tournament. France will now play Spain as they finished runners-up in Group B thanks to this defeat to a Swedish side that had already been eliminated.

Despite the French sporadically threatening in a nervy affair, the Swedes had the majority of the chances and took the lead through a superb Zlatan Ibrahimovic volley shortly after half-time, before Sebastian Larsson sealed the win in the final stages of the match. Whilst the result restored a great deal of pride to a poor tournament for Erik Hamren’s men, the French will head into Saturday’s difficult encounter with Spain facing questions over their mentality after limping through the group stage.

France all but secured their place in the last eight with a 2-0 win over Ukraine on matchday 2 to take them to 22 games unbeaten, whilst Sweden crashed out of the tournament following a 3-2 to defeat to England in Kiev.

Ukraine provided a stern examination of Laurent Blanc’s team in a rain drenched evening in Donetsk, but the class of a vibrant attack containing Samir Nasri, Karim Benzema, Franck Ribery and Jeremy Menez shone through in the end as Menez and midfielder Yohann Cabaye edged Les Blues home in the second half. Erik Hamren’s Swedes have looked poor in this tournament however, conceding to two late Andriy Shevchenko headers against Ukraine in matchday 1 and capitulating in the final half hour after being gifted a 2-1 lead against England.

In a roller-coaster encounter in Kiev, England managed to battle back from 2-1 down to win 3-2 and in doing so, knocking Erik Hamren’s side out with their first ever competitive defeat of Sweden. England now just need a point from Tuesday’s game with co-hosts Ukraine to progress from Group D after a battling comeback led by the irrepressible Theo Walcott.

Both teams go into their second game of Euro 2012 needing a win after dropping points in their opening matches and the pressure is on to deliver the win that will be vital in progressing from what is shaping up to be a very tight group. With both teams coming off different results, the Swedes unexpected loss to Ukraine whilst England got a largely unexpected point from a hugely disciplined performance against France, it is difficult to predict how they will differ in preparations to a game that could, in the case of Sweden especially, see them eliminated.